Saturday, August 30, 2014

Most of the Postal Service's ballooning costs for workers' compensation result from injuries that are at least eight years old, according to a postal official.

"A majority of the workers’ compensation costs are attributed to employees who were injured prior to 2008," USPS spokesperson Darlene Casey wrote this week in a comment on Dead Tree Edition. She was responding to the article Are USPS Changes Leading to More Work-Related Injuries?, which suggested that recent changes in working conditions might have contributed to the agency's rapidly escalating workers' comp costs.

The Postal Service supports the recent Inspector General's report that describes why USPS workers' comp costs rose 35% from 2008 to 2013 despite a 19% decrease in the workforce, Ms. Casey said. Healthcare inflation has been a major factor, she added.

USPS also agrees with the IG's call for reforming the federal law that governs workers' comp at USPS.

The IG report showed that the number of new workers' comp claims per employee dropped drastically in 2009 but inched back up to 7 per 100 employees in 2013, the same rate as in 2008. No data have been released regarding changes in the type or severity of injuries.

Here is Ms. Casey's comment in its entirety:

The Postal Service appreciates the work of the Office of Inspector
General (IG) highlighting the need to reform the Federal Employees'
Compensation Act (FECA). The IG report describes many factors which
contribute to the increase in the Postal Service's workers' compensation
costs, including injury rates associated with a more mature workforce,
reduced light/limited duty positions attributed to automation, and cost
of living adjustments.

The cost of living adjustments mentioned
in the report do not refer to employees’ salary adjustments, but rather
federally mandated cost of living adjustments provided to federal
employees on the Department of Labor (DOL) Periodic Rolls. For the years
2008 – 2013 those increases were 4.3 percent, 0 percent, 3.4 percent,
1.7 percent, 3.2 percent, and 1.7 percent respectively, which when
compounded equates to an increase of 15.1 percent over the base period.

The
Postal Service also strongly believes that healthcare inflation is a
major contributing factor to the cost increases. Our average medical
cost per case has increased 43.4 percent since 2008 far greater than the
compounded 21.3 percent reported adjusted medical care cost increase
reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In comparison, the average
compensation cost per case has increased 24.2 percent in the same time
period.

We must reiterate the findings of the IG that these
increases in expenses occurred during a time when claims filed with the
DOL were less than the 2008 level; and a majority of the workers’
compensation costs are attributed to employees who were injured prior to
2008.

The IG has aggressively gone after fraud, having saved the
Postal Service more than $289 million from future losses, and nearly
$52 million in medical and disability judgments associated with
fraudulent claims.

We agree with the IG's call for reforms to
FECA and we will continue to work with Congress on reforms that will
return the Postal Service to profitability.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Letter carriers and other postal employees have been saying for several years that changes at the Postal Service would lead to more job-related injuries. A new report suggests they may be right.

"Despite the Postal Service’s efforts to decrease the number of employees [by 19% since 2008], its workers’ compensation costs have increased 35 percent,” the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General noted in a report last week.

The OIG pointed out that USPS’s workers compensation costs per work hour are now 59% higher than those of comparable private-industry workforces. But it offered no data that would help explain the dramatic increases, which led to $1.3 billion in workers compensation claims from July 2012 to June 2013.

The report speculated as to the causes, but most of its guesses seem off the mark: Older workforce? (Nope, it’s not much older on average than it was in 2008.) Cost-of-living adjustments? (Average hourly pay at the Postal Service is up only 7% since 2008.) Workers compensation fraud? (You mean that didn’t exist in 2008?)

The OIG put forth one plausible explanation – “the reduced number of light/limited duty positions available because of automation and lower mail volume.” But it didn’t consider several other possibilities, most of which have been put forward by front-line employees:

Increased street time: Delivery-point sequencing of letters – and, for some areas, flat mail – have meant carriers spend less time in the office sorting mail and more time delivering. That’s likely to lead to repetitive-strain injuries, especially on walking routes, for carriers who are delivering to more addresses than ever.

Longer hours: The proportion of overtime hours is up 80% for mailhandlers and 30% for letter carriers so far this fiscal year versus the same period in FY2008. That may also lead to more repetitive-strain injuries.

Night-time deliveries: Reports of carriers working their routes after dark, especially during the winter in northern parts of the country, have grown dramatically in the past couple of years. That seems to be a combination of longer routes and of mail arriving at the delivery units later than in the past. In any case, having carriers negotiating icy sidewalks at night is a prescription for more slips, falls, and fractures.

More uninsured employees: USPS has reduced its costs the past few years partly by replacing retirees with lower-paid, often younger non-career employees. Such employees are more likely to report a pinched nerve or sore knee as a work-related injury, since many have little or no health insurance.

More parcels: Letter volume is declining, but postal employees are handling and delivering more packages than ever -- often using delivery vehicles not suited to the purpose. The higher proportion of heavy and oversized mail pieces may be causing more injuries.

The Postal Service can’t address the troubling workers compensation trend without understanding the causes. And the way to get at the causes is not with speculation but with actual data – for example, trends in injuries by occupation, age, and type.

To be fair, the OIG report does offer viable ways for USPS to manage its workers compensation costs better and for overhauling the relevant laws. It notes that the agency is paying workers compensation to two “active” employees who are more than 100 years old – certainly a sign that something is amiss.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

A commentator I respect, Joe Wikert, published a piece last week headlined “How Print Is Killing Publishers” that at first struck me as completely wrongheaded and backwards. But what we have here is failure to communicate.

“Print is a publisher’s silent killer” because publishers are relying on print “even at the expense of digital transformation and growth,” Wikert wrote for Book Business magazine. “The crazy part is we all
know it's a big problem and yet very few publishers are taking evasive action.”

Publishers’ biggest problem, Wikert claimed, is when their brands are “directly associated with print” – that is, “when consumers hear your brand name [and] all they can think of is a print product” and see “no association with digital whatsoever.”

“Joe, were you flash frozen in 2008?” I said to myself. “That’s the kind of bass-ackward thinking that decided ‘The Daily Beast’ was a stronger brand name than ‘Newsweek’ simply because Newsweek was in print.”

I thought of publishing brands like The Atlantic and The Christian Science Monitor that are thriving on the web without having to disown their
century-plus print legacies. And I recalled the web-savvy colleague who said, “Having a print publication can do wonders for a web site’s brand image.”

It was hard to think of any U.S. magazine publishers that are not trying to become less dependent on products that have to be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service or the newsstand system. The only notable exceptions are digital-native brands like Allrecipes.com, Politico, and the new Newsweek that decided to build cache by putting some ink on paper. (How’s that for not worrying about being “directly associated with print”?)

I was wrong
Then I realized the fundamental error in Wikert’s thinking – and that I was making the same mistake: Any generalization about “publishers” is bound to be wrong, especially when it centers on the vague word “digital.”

Taken out of context, the word “publisher” means so many different things to different people that it ceases to have meaning. When newspaper people say “publishing,” they mean newspaper publishing. To magazine people, “publishing” means mostly magazine publishing. And for folks in the book industry, “publishing” means, believe it or not, book publishing.

There is no such thing as "the" publishing industry, only publishing industries.

“Digital transformation” is a chameleon term in the publishing industries. It can be about web sites, digital editions, apps, e-newsletters, or shiny new object of the week.

For book publishers, digital transformation refers to the once-seismic, now-glacial shift to e-books. Or people buying printed books from e-stores instead of bookstore. Or even the growing reliance on digital presses to reduce inventory costs via “print on demand.”

Wikert’s company, Olive Software, creates XML editions of publications for many leading newspapers (and other organizations). Perhaps he is genuinely frustrated by clients who cling to outmoded ways and the once-a-day publishing cycle. Perhaps print -- or, rather, the failure to embrace other media -- really is killing some of those publishers.

A galaxy away
If so, the publishing industry Wikert experiences is a galaxy away from the one in which I toil during the day (and write about at night). Not many magazines can say they have figured out the “digital transformation,” but most have moved beyond print-versus-digital thinking and are working to ensure their brands are relevant in multiple media. (Because, God knows, no one medium can bring in enough scratch to keep the lights on.)

Wikert might be horrified to know that some publishers in my industry consider Olive-type editions to be “print” because they are often outgrowths of printed products -- sharing the same content, advertisers, ratebase, and P&L. For those publishers, “print” has come to mean “paginated content” that doesn’t necessarily involve dead trees, while “digital” means such un-paginated content as web sites and e-newsletters.

There is no single “digital transformation” in any of the publishing industries. E-books dominate romance fiction but have hardly touched the world of
art books on coffee tables. The web has wiped out much of the weekly newsmagazine business, but glossy fashion titles seem as healthy as ever.

Regardless which publishing industry you’re in, shibboleths (whether “print is dead” or “print rules”) and simplistic solutions will end in disaster. Sorry, folks, there are no one-size-fits-all answers in this business.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Barely a month after doubling the size of its office-products business, printing giant R.R. Donnelley was cited for selling office products with “unregistered pesticides.”

On May 8, the company received a notice from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleging that its ”distribution and sale of certain office products involving antimicrobial properties violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (‘FIFRA’) because they constituted unregistered pesticides,” the company revealed last week. “The EPA is seeking civil penalties for the alleged violations.”

Esselte sells a line of antimicrobial file folders.

The revelation, buried on page 57 of the company’s quarterly financial report, said Donnelley “anticipates having discussions with the EPA regarding a potential resolution” of the issue, which “is not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated results of operations, financial position or cash flows.”

On March 25, Donnelley completed the acquisition of Esselte, which makes office and stationery products, including some “antimicrobial” products that resist mold and mildew. As a result, Second Quarter office-products revenue for the U.S.’s largest printing company increased 141%, to $158.6 million, over the same period in 2013.

Donnelley’s statement does not indicate exactly which office products are involved in the EPA complaint or whether they are part of the Esselte division. Nor does it indicate whether the EPA singled out Donnelley or is investigating other companies as well.

“Antimicrobial products kill or slow the spread of microorganisms,” says the National Pesticide Information Center. “If a product label claims to kill, control, repel, mitigate or reduce a pest, it is a pesticide regulated by the U.S. EPA.”

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